History of the State of Israel

QUESTION: What is the history of the state of Israel?

ANSWER:

The years between 30-700 C.E. (Christian Era) and 1500 saw significant events within the history of the state of Israel. Christianity split away from Judaism. The Great Jewish Revolt of Israeli history ended with the destruction of the Second Temple and the fall of Jerusalem. The fall of Masada, a separate sect of Jews living within Roman territory, and a failed revolt against Rome left Jerusalem with the Roman name Aelia Capitolina and Jews were forbidden to set foot in Rome during the evangelism of the early Church. The Muslim conquest of Spain alleviated persecution of Jews under Christian rule. The Jewish prayer book (siddur), the Rif (an important work of Jewish law), and complete commentaries written for the Hebrew Bible were published during this period. In the latter part of this era, many countries expelled the Jews causing them to relocate mostly to Poland.

The following timeline of Israeli history ranges from 1501 to 1800 where the first Jewish ghetto is established in Europe, the Ghetto of Venice. King Sigismund I of Poland abolished the law that required Jews to wear special clothes. The Ukrainian Cossack massacred 200,000 Polish gentry and Jewry. Jews were allowed back into England during this time of Israeli history and the Jewish population worldwide was estimated at 1,200,000. By the end of this era, most of the Jews lived in Russia, Prussia, and Austria when the American Revolution gained religious freedom and President George Washington sent a letter to the Jewish community in Rhode Island envisioning a country "which gives bigotry no sanction. . .persecution no assistance." France granted full rights to the Jews and allowed them citizenship while the Pale Settlement for the Jewish population of the Russian controlled Poland was created.

The Golden Age of Yiddish and Hebrew literature ranged from 1801 to 1900, as Hebrew was a revived spoken language. Jews were emancipated in many countries, as they were formally recognized as a culture. Hebrew Colleges were started, while Hebrew men were elected into offices for the first time in democratic governments. The first wave of Jewish immigrants started to build in the homeland of Palestine with Jewish population growth at 7.7 million worldwide. The rise of persecuted Jews began in Russia and the Ukraine.

From 1901 to 1945, Britain defeated the Turks and gained control of the land of Israel in 1917, which many Jews thought meant that all of Palestine was to become a Jewish controlled state. The Pale Settlement in Poland under Russian rule was abolished and Jews received equal rights. The British allowed Arab immigration into the Golan Heights, but Jewish immigration was not allowed. A worldwide Jewish population grew to 15,000,000 with the most in the USA, Poland, Soviet Union, Romania, and Palestine. The British government reversed their support of the Balfour Declaration limiting Jewish immigration to 75,000, when the Holocaust happened from 1939 to 1945.

The post Holocaust history of Israel saw her officially recognized as a state with her own democratic government in 1948. One year after World War II, 250,000 Holocaust survivors made their way to Israel. The Arab countries surrounding the small state made a pact between them to not recognize, negotiate, or make peace with Israel. The wars launched against the new state were the Arab-Israeli war, the Suez war with Egypt, the creation of the P.L.O., the Six-Day war, the Yom Kippur War, the Lebanon war, Intifadas, and Israel was attacked by Saddam Hussein from Iraq with 39 scud missiles in 1990-1991.

Since Israel saw statehood, her intelligence network became the best and most accurate in the world. Israeli teams rescued hostages taken in Entebbe, Uganda. They rescued their people from oppressive nations like Ethiopia, as seen in "Operation Elijah," "Operation Moses," and "Operation Solomon" in 1991, when Israel airlifted the remainder of Ethiopian Jewry to safety. In the last couple of years we have seen fulfillment of prophesy as Israeli scholars extensively searched the genealogies of the tribes of Israel to initiate the offices of the Levite priests and to seat a king out of the lineage of King David.

WHAT DO YOU THINK? - We have all sinned and deserve God's judgment. God, the Father, sent His only Son to satisfy that judgment for those who believe in Him. Jesus, the creator and eternal Son of God, who lived a sinless life, loves us so much that He died for our sins, taking the punishment that we deserve, was buried, and rose from the dead according to the Bible. If you truly believe and trust this in your heart, receiving Jesus alone as your Savior, declaring, "Jesus is Lord," you will be saved from judgment and spend eternity with God in heaven.